


Persistence in Porcelain

by lost_spook



Category: Jonathan Creek (TV)
Genre: Gen, Yuletide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-18
Updated: 2013-12-18
Packaged: 2018-01-05 01:57:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1088242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lost_spook/pseuds/lost_spook
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maddy's got a problem involving a ballerina, a clown and a vanishing motel.  Obviously, there's only one person who can help.  She just probably shouldn't have annoyed him first...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Persistence in Porcelain

**Author's Note:**

  * For [butterflymind](https://archiveofourown.org/users/butterflymind/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide! I hope this at least provides you with the banter you wished for.
> 
> When exactly this is set is up to the reader - either at some point between the end of S4 and the most recent episode, or AU from that, as you please.
> 
> With many thanks to my beta, Persiflage! (Any remaining errors are, of course, entirely mine.)

If you believed everything you read, you’d think there was a magician’s assistant who lived in a windmill in Sussex and solved impossible crimes in his spare time.

As Maddy Magellan happened to be the investigative journalist-cum-true crime writer who wrote the stories in the first place, she knew that was completely true. And also that if Sherlock Holmes had complained that much about every case, Watson would have given up on him long before anyone went falling off any cliffs. But then, thought Maddy, Watson had to deal with excessive violin-playing and a dodgy drug habit, so it was swings and roundabouts, wasn’t it?

And maybe she’d gone to America for a bit – a really short while – well, maybe a few years – time just seemed to sort of fly, didn’t it? – who could blame her, either? People had their own lives to live and apparently some people were only too keen to get on and live them, shacking up with the first blonde who came along, and it wasn’t as if she’d had any reason to come back or –

The car stopped.

She hastily reviewed the scenario in her head: new car (ish); her only just arrived in the UK, hardly anyone even knew she was here yet - and now she was stuck at least a mile (if not two) from a windmill in Sussex in the middle of nowhere on a dark and rainy night. Yep, it was about as bad as it got even before you factored in the whole other _thing_ that had brought her there.

“Shit,” said Maddy.

*

Jonathan put the finishing touches to a detailed cardboard model of a lake and trees and scowled as the phone rang, interrupting the positioning of the last swan and causing him to drop it on the floor. He picked up the phone and hoped it wasn’t Adam about the whole geese farrago again. If it was it’d make it the ninth call that day and the third had been more than enough. He didn’t want to know where anybody was having feathers removed from.

“Jonathan,” said a voice that he’d recognise anywhere, though she was the last person he’d expected to be ringing. “I’ve broken down and I could use some help.”

He shouldn’t have been surprised, he thought. How many years had it been now, and he was still subconsciously expecting this sort of thing? It was almost a relief to have it actually happening. If he went out with someone new, the evening of the first date was inevitably followed by some ridiculous nightmare of her walking in – usually while they were doing something surreal (because dreams were like that, especially so when you knew Adam Klaus). He couldn’t get rid of her, even when technically, you might say he had.

He sighed at the phone. “Well, what d’you want me to do about it? I’m sure America’s got an equivalent of the AA. Call them!”

“… because I think it’s something to do with the electrics,” she was still saying. Then she added, “Anyway, I’m not a member any more. No very nice men are going to come for me. I’ll have to make do with you.”

Jonathan sat down in front of his model again. “Look, what do you actually want?”

“How to get through to the greatest mind of the century?” said Maddy. “I’m not in America, I’m about two miles down the road and even if I was a member of the AA, I’m not sitting here for bloody hours on end in the cold and dark waiting for them to find me while you’re a stone’s throw away in a nice, cosy windmill!”

“Wait. You’re in the country?”

“I always knew I exaggerated your mental prowess. Must have done. Can’t believe you didn’t even notice it wasn’t an international number.”

He wasted a grimace on thin air. “That’ll be the shock.”

*

The car decided to start as enigmatically as it had decided to stop, so she picked him up on the way, his coat dripping wet in the rain.

He got in without a word.

“It just sort of started again,” she said. “Sorry about that.”

“I should have known.”

Maddy bit her lip and had another go at finding the windscreen wipers, via the back wiper, the screenwash, the indicator, the fog light, and at least two buttons that did nothing at all as far as she could see. “Well, you didn’t phone, either. And then there’s emails and letters – you know, those things you didn’t send.”

“I did!”

“One birthday card a year and four emails asking for information don’t count.”

“Five emails. Anyway, what about you? You weren’t exactly all that communicative, either – for a wonder.”

“I sent a postcard.”

“One.”

“Well, there were emails. Lots.” And, all right, so most of them, or the important ones, were saved on her hard drive instead of, you know, actually _sent_ sent, but the thought was what counted, wasn’t it?

“Most of them were forwards and at least half of them was that one with the binary cats _again_.”

Maddy grinned. “Oh, yeah. The binary cats. Hilarious, right?”

“Not by the fifteenth time, no.”

“Well, I was busy. What’s your excuse?”

Jonathan huffed into his coat. “ _I_ was busy. Some maniac crime writer made me a famous detective and then buggered off to the other side of the Atlantic.”

“Didn’t seem much reason to come back.”

“Well, why did you? On second thoughts, don’t tell me. You know, I’ve had nightmares about this.”

“Oh, thanks – nice to see you, too, Jonathan!”

“Look, I know you must want something – and if it’s brought you all the way from America, I’m pretty certain I’m not going to like it.”

*

“You know,” said Maddy, following him into the windmill, “I was starting to think I’d made all this up. There couldn’t really be someone called Jonathan Creek, who lived in a windmill and invented weird magic tricks.”

“Thanks to you, that’s what everyone I meet says. Well, used to.”

Maddy turned. “Yeah. Magic’s a bit out of fashion these days, isn’t it? Must be tough.”

“So whatever it is,” he said, “you can go and find someone else to plague about it.”

“It’s funny,” said Maddy, with a sidelong look at him, “but nobody else quite does it for me, Jonathan. It just has to be you.”

Jonathan glowered. “Look, whatever it is, just get on with it. Got a dismembered corpse in the boot? Ran out of Weetabix? Or you took a wrong turning in Seattle and wound up in Sussex, can’t think how that happened?”

“There’d better not be a corpse in my car. If there is, it’s your fault,” said Maddy. She considered him, putting a finger to her mouth briefly. “You know… maybe this was a bad idea. Maybe your brain’s rusted away after all these years. Bound to happen, really. I mean, all that time hanging round with Adam Klaus – can’t be good for you, can it? Maybe I should ring your new sidekick instead?”

“I don’t have a ‘sidekick’. And my brain cells are doing fine, thanks. Out with it.”

“If I said it was about a disappearing motel, a china ballerina and a clown, what would you say?”

“Well, I think I’d want a few more details than that, thanks.”

“Details?” Maddy plonked herself down in the sofa. “Do you really want the details, Jonathan?”

“It would be helpful, yes.”

“And that’s all you can say, is it?”

Even for Maddy, that was baffling. Or maybe it wasn’t these days, who knew? “What did you expect me to say? That’s not a story; it’s not even a cryptic crossword clue!”

She shook her head. “Look, I’m here, okay? You got me. Now, explain. Feel free to be as patronising as you like. As long as you bloody well tell me what this is about, I don’t mind!”

“I’m sorry, but are we even having the same conversation?”

“Don’t give me that!”

Jonathan closed his eyes briefly, then opened them again, and sat down. “Look, how about we start this again? You tell me whatever it is about this motel, the ballerina and the clown, and I might even be able to help. If I feel like it.”

“Oh, I see,” she said, folding her arms. “Like that, is it? All right, Jonathan, all right. Well, as it happened, a month or so ago I was on a publishing tour, staying overnight in a motel – you know how it is –”

“Yes, yes. Go on.”

“Thing is, when I woke up the next morning, there was a small china ballerina on the bedside table.”

“And?”

Maddy glared at him. “Well, obviously, it hadn’t been there the night before, or I wouldn’t have bothered mentioning it, would I? Anyway, that seemed a bit odd, but I just thought maybe I hadn’t noticed it, or it was a complimentary thing, like coffee sachets or shower gel – that sort of thing –”

“Well, maybe you hadn’t noticed it.”

“Will you let me finish?” Maddy drew in her breath. “Anyway, next stop, same thing happened. And you know something? There was this flaw on the first ballerina – a mark on her leg. And I left her where she was, and yet – next place, there she was again in the morning. Same mark on the leg.”

“You expect me to believe this?”

“Anyway, that was beginning to get weird enough, but then the fourth time, there was a clown as well. On the balcony – and then he was gone.”

“Wait – what?”

“A clown. On the balcony outside my room, looking in at me.”

“What was he doing there?”

Maddy shrugged. “When I looked again, he’d gone – but I didn’t imagine it, before you say anything else! I got out of there as fast as I could. Tried that the next time, too, second I saw the ballerina turn up again. Didn’t feel like waiting to see if I’d get another clown. And then, that’s the other thing – when I tried to get back to it, the motel had gone.”

Jonathan thought about mentioning her usual haphazard attitude to directions and then decided it wasn’t the moment. 

“Whole place had gone,” she said. “Never even been a motel there, anyway, everyone said.”

“When you arrived, was it dark?”

Maddy thought it over. “That one? Yes, I think so. Look, it’s not the sixteenth century – the lighting was sufficient for me to notice whether or not there was a building there.”

“A _building_ , yes,” said Jonathan. That one wasn’t as hard, he thought. Obviously. Neither was the clown. The ballerina, though – that was a bit more worrying. If it was true.

“Anyway, it’s been five times now that bloody ballerina’s appeared in my room – different cities, same thing. Here.” Maddy stood up again, and after a few minutes of searching, fished a small porcelain figurine out of her bag, and passed it over.

Jonathan examined it closely. Nothing remarkable about it in itself. “Hmm.”

“And then,” said Maddy, “of course, it occurred to me that if there was one person capable of pulling off a stunt like this, it was you.”

*

“I’m sorry, what kind of sick bastard do you take me for?”

“You’re saying you didn’t do it!”

“Of course I didn’t!”

Maddy leant forward. “Yes, but who else would be able to work out a stunt like that _and_ who’d think it was better than emailing or ringing me?”

“And why the hell would I bother? Or has logic entirely deserted you now? And why a bloody ballerina?”

She shrugged. “That’s what I was going to ask you. And – I don’t know – to get back at me, or prove a point, or something.”

“Excuse me, but did you got to America or another planet?”

Maddy fell silent. She hugged the nearest cushion to her, fiddling with the corners of it. “Then you didn’t do it?”

“Come on, you don’t really believe that I’d do something like that, do you? That’s what you think of me, is it?”

She shook her head. “I suppose I knew, really,” she said, more distantly. “It was better to think that, because otherwise –”

“Otherwise there really is some psycho out there leaving you ballerinas everywhere you go.” 

Maddy nodded. 

“Unless, of course, _you’re_ making all this up, which is the likeliest explanation as far as I’m concerned.”

“I wouldn’t!”

“Oh, what, think I’ve forgotten, do you? Or that I’m even more of a gullible idiot than I used to be?”

Maddy looked up at him. “That stupid ornament has been following me around for the past few _months_ , Jonathan. If it’s not some magic trick, then what is it? And why?”

“Well, if it was true,” said Jonathan, “it’s not the same ballerina. That bit’s easy.”

“Oh, it would be.” She glared at him. “What about the flaw? How can it not be the same one?”

“Exactly.”

“What?”

He raised an eyebrow fractionally. “Think about it.”

“I don’t –” Maddy stopped and looked at him. “Oh. I suppose – a box of rejects? But all so alike –?”

“Well, it’s not classy stuff, is it? Cheap, mass produced – error on the line – cue a bunch of identically useless ballerinas with the same mark in the wrong place,” said Jonathan. “Except nobody did. This is another one of your games, and I’m not playing, okay?”

Maddy got up. “I’m not going to bother answering that. Goodnight, Jonathan.” She walked out of the door.

Jonathan watched her go, and shrugged. If she wanted something, she’d be back. On the other hand, he thought, suppose it _was_ true? Suppose it was true, and someone was doing something this weird? It wouldn’t be the first time she’d annoyed someone, would it? And the thing about writing about true crime was that it involved real criminals, who weren’t the best set of people to piss off.

What if there was someone setting all this up, and now she was out there – and the car – something wrong with the electrics, she’d said –

*

He had barely stepped out of the door, when she cannoned into him on the way back in panic. In the ensuing moment of confusion, he gradually registered that she was waving another one of the figurines about.

“In my car!” she gasped.

“Talking of which, best to get that checked before you go anywhere.”

“Oh, so now you believe me?”

Jonathan hesitated before replying, and then looked at the china ballerina in his hand, and down at her, hanging onto his arm. “I don’t know. You didn’t put this there?”

“No, I didn’t! I got in – nearly didn’t notice, and there it was on the floor on the passenger side. It definitely wasn’t there when I started off. It was light, and I’m beginning to get a bit paranoid about the whole thing.”

Jonathan considered that. “Hmm.”

“That mean I can stay, then?”

He opened the door for her, and stood back, capitulating unwillingly. 

She smiled at him as she walked in: the smile that meant she’d got exactly what she wanted. He wasn’t anything like as annoyed as he should have been, though he maintained a low-level glower for appearances sake.

“You get the sofa,” he added, following her in and shutting the door behind them.

“What if a clown comes to murder me in the night?”

“Then at least he won’t bother me.”

“I’d scream. Loudly.”

“Thanks for the warning,” he said. “I’ll remember to put my earplugs in.”

“You bastard,” said Maddy, but happily. “You would, too.”

*

“So?” Maddy poked him. She knew that annoying wrinkled expression on his face – the one that said he was at least halfway to working out most of it and wasn’t going to deign to enlighten anyone else until he felt like it. “And before you ask again, I am not making this up. So, tell me what you think is going on, because I’m somewhere between bloody petrified and completely livid.”

Jonathan turned his head. “The point is, then, who’ve you been annoying lately?”

“Me?”

“True crime involves actual criminals,” said Jonathan. “Any of them axe-murderers with a tendency to hold a grudge?”

Maddy gave him her best unimpressed look. “Somehow I don’t think the ballerina and clown approach is typical of your average axe-murderer.”

“Well, either it’s a very elaborate practical joke, or you’ve really pissed off someone you didn’t want to. Or you’re making the whole thing up, of course. Let’s not forget that option.”

She ignored the last part of the sentence – only thing to do, really. She’d conceded it wasn’t him; he could at least return the favour, couldn’t he? “Look, it doesn’t make sense any way you look at it. I haven’t written anything involving anything like this! I mean, there’s one story that at a push you could possibly say might have a dancer in it, but that hasn’t been published yet. It’s not even got to the stage of my editor definitely wanting it, either, so I don’t see –”

“But that just proves everything,” said Jonathan, and sat back. “You should probably ring the police.”

Maddy glared. “Care to tell me what I’m supposed to be telling them?”

“Well?” said Jonathan. “Who might know something about an unpublished work and could get access to your itinerary?”

She blinked. Okay. “What, my _publishers_? You think this is some kind of publicity stunt –?”

“No,” said Jonathan. “Unfortunately. As I said, I think you’ve annoyed someone who’s best not annoyed. And in this case they happened to have some sort of contact at your publishing house. Think about it. If it’s true, what else accounts for all of it?”

Maddy frowned. “But what’s the point? I mean, if it’s this oblique, it’s not going to stop me writing anything, is it?”

“Yes. That’s why you want to ring the police. This has got to be the preliminary, hasn’t it? Get you good and scared before they make their demands, or threats, or whatever it is they have in mind –”

“I dunno,” said Maddy. “What’s the world coming to? What’s wrong with a really vicious book review these days? I mean, character assassination you can live with. It’s the other sort that –” She cut herself short with a shiver.

Jonathan turned the ballerina round in his hands. “So. They’d have to have access to your itinerary – and more detail than you could just pull off the website. I suppose they ring ahead to the place – tell them it’s a present from an admiring fan, or maybe sometimes they’d be with you, might risk placing it in there themselves.”

“And the clown?”

“You said you saw him – or her – on your balcony, didn’t you? Through a window, in the dark? Just for a minute?”

She nodded. “Yes, but – No, I saw him there! I mean – I think –”

“Moment of confusion. Depending on where the light is, a window in the dark is basically a mirror –”

“Oh, God! Jonathan!”

“What?” said Jonathan.

Maddy rolled her eyes at how obtuse genius could be. “You’re saying the clown was standing behind me – just for a minute, right? As if that’s supposed to make me feel better! God!”

“Could have been a coincidence, of course, that bit. You were already unnerved by the rest, and – wham – an unexpected clown! Who wouldn’t scream? Probably scared them off.”

“My heart bleeds for them – I don’t think! And, I mean, obviously, because you so often get random clowns wandering around in hotel corridors. Can’t think how many times I’ve had to complain about that.”

“Look, I’m only working from what you’ve given me, which, you have to admit, is very incomplete evidence. It could as easily be either – deliberate or coincidence. I don’t know, do I?”

“Right, okay,” said Maddy. “We’ll ignore the freaky guy on his way to the Ronald McDonald trainee convention and I’ll just about buy your ballerina theory – what about the vanishing motel?”

Jonathan shrugged. “Oh, well, that one’s _easy_. You’re stopping somewhere this person’s got contacts, so they give you the wrong address, put up temporary signs at the front, have someone geared to play receptionist, lead you to a prepared room –”

“Seriously?”

“Well, buildings can’t vanish, can they? Probably told them it was for a reality TV show, or a chapter in your next book or something. And then you get onto your publisher’s – they give you another wrong address, and, bam, vanished motel, and even if you do drive round it, minus the signage and in daylight, it’s unrecognisable enough.”

Maddy wrinkled her nose. “I suppose. Maybe. But what about this one?” She pointed at the figurine. “In the car! Do you think whoever it is out there now?”

“Well,” said Jonathan, “I don’t think so.”

She closed her eyes. “Then how did that appear out of thin air?”

“Well, I don’t know if it was me that knocked it open, or you pressing a random button, but something definitely fell out of the glove compartment earlier. I didn’t take much notice, that’s all – I mean, it’s your car, bound to be stuff falling about –”

“Thank you, Jonathan!” Then she breathed out in relief, because, after all, it’s always nice to know some murderous bastard isn’t out there in the dark waiting for you. Or probably not, assuming he was right, of course. “So, they arranged with the hire car place to put it in the glove compartment as a little surprise for me?”

“Who’s going to think a thing like that’s meant to be sinister? And if it’s done with the official booking from a known publishing house, why not play along? No harm done, right?”

“S’pose not.” Maddy pulled a face.

Jonathan smiled at her. “So, all you need to do is go off, phone the police, phone someone you definitely trust at your publishers – if there is anyone – and let them make the connection.”

“That easy, eh?”

He shrugged.

“And to think I’d been worrying.” She watched him closely, but he wasn’t giving much away. She supposed the accusations hadn’t been the best way to start, now that she thought about it. Still, how could she have known it wasn’t him till she asked? “I suppose I should just… go away and do that.”

“Yes. Yes. You should.”

She got to her feet. “I will. Thank you, Jonathan. Sorry about – you know –”

“What, accusing me of being a cross-continental malicious prankster? No worries. Pop by again next time you’re in the country and insult me some more, why don’t you? I’ll look forward to it.”

She narrowed her gaze. That wasn’t a proper acceptance of a heartfelt apology, was it? She headed for the door. “I might do that. So – I’ll go make a phone call and put an end to this, shall I?” She reached the door and opened it. “Oh, and, Jonathan?”

He’d hunched up on his seat. “What?”

“Smash the thing for me, will you? Or get Adam to do something unspeakable to it. Your choice.”

He grinned briefly, or she thought he did, but she’d slammed the door in her own face first, too quickly to be sure. “Shit,” she said, and headed off to the car, still not feeling particularly safe out here in the dark. It was rare, but Jonathan had been wrong before. It would be typical if now was going to turn out to be one of those times.

The thought of her tragic demise proving him wrong was ironically comforting enough to carry her back to the relative safety of the now-ballerina-free hired car. Another few moments, and she’d be gone for good.

*

It was quiet now, Jonathan thought. Quiet and peaceful, and calm. Hopefully she’d be gone any minute now – maybe she was gone already. He listened for the sound of the car starting. It was all be for the best, obviously. He still had Adam and the whole geese-swan fiasco on his hands. The last thing he needed on top of that was her walking back in with all her –

“Jonathan!” came a voice through the door. “Let me in!”

He wasn’t relieved that she was still here, of course. That wouldn’t be logical. He reached the other side of it, and leant against it. “Any particular reason I should?”

“Well,” she said, and she sounded embarrassed. “Just one tiny little detail. One teensy weensy little thing that I can’t quite leave without.”

“And what would that be?”

“My car keys.”

Jonathan opened the door and let her in.


End file.
